This eBook was created by Charles Aldarondo (pg@aldarondo.net). THE RECREATIONS OF A COUNTRY PARSON. SECOND SERIES. A. K. H. BOYD. BOSTON: 1862. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. CONCERNING THE PARSON'S CHOICE CHAPTER II. CONCERNING DISAPPOINTMENT AND SUCCESS CHAPTER III. CONCERNING SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS CHAPTER IV. CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS CHAPTER V. CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS CHAPTER VI. CONCERNING SCREWS CHAPTER VII. CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS CHAPTER VIII. CONCERNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER CHAPTER IX. CONCERNING MAN AND HIS DWELLING-PLACE CHAPTER X. LIFE AT THE WATER-CURE CHAPTER XI. CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL CHAPTER XII. CONCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND CHAPTER XIII. CONCERNING FUTURE TEARS CHAPTER XIV. CONCLUSION CHAPTER I. CONCERNING THE PARSON'S CHOICE BETWEEN TOWN AND COUNTRY. One very happy circumstance in a clergyman's lot, is that he is saved from painful perplexity as regards his choice of the scene in which he is to spend his days and years. I am sorry for the man who returns from Australia with a large fortune; and with no further end in life than to settle down somewhere and enjoy it. For in most cases he has no special tie to any particular place; and he must feel very much perplexed where to go. Should any person who may read this page cherish the purpose of leaving me a hundred thousand pounds to invest in a pretty little estate, I beg that he will at once abandon such a design. He would be doing me no kindness. I should be entirely bewildered in trying to make up my mind where I should purchase the property. I should be rent asunder by conflicting visions of rich English landscape, and heathery Scottish hills: of seaside breezes, and inland meadows: of horse-chestnut avenues, and dark stern pine-woods. And after the estate had been bought, I should always be looking back and thinking I might have done better. So, on the whole, I would prefer that my reader should himself buy the estate, and bequeath it to me: and then I could soon persuade myself that it was the prettiest estate and the pleasantest neighbourhood in Britain.